Submarine cable glitch renders sluggish internet

DHAKA, Jan 5, 2017 (BSS) - Users of Bangladesh have been experiencing slow internet connection for last few days due to glitches in the submarine cables of India, said Internet Service Providers' Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB).

"Three submarine cables, two owned by Indian companies and another IMEWE consortium, that serve Bangladesh have been snatched and remain out of order in last few days causing sluggish internet in Bangladesh," ISPAB Secretary Md Emdadul Haque said today at a statement.

He said the i2i submarine cable owned by Bharti Airtel would be back in order by January 20 while India-Middle East-West Europe (IMEWE) cable in a week, and repair of Tata Indicom Cable (TIC) remained uncertain.

"Users of Bangladesh would get internet connection in full pace after the three submarine cables come back in order," added Haque in the statement.

On December 13 last year, the i2i submarine telecommunication cable, owned by Bharti Airtel Limited, was down due to fiber cut while on January 4 another 3,175km long Indian cable TIC that connected Chennai and Changi of Singapore went down.

Besides, the ultra high capacity IMEWE submarine cable that links India and Europe via Middle East also went out of order.

Currently country's total bandwidth consumption is more than 400 Gbps, of which ISPAB takes 120 Gbps from the state-owned Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) while the remaining is supplied from India through six International Terrestrial Cables.